Daily Human – Paths – 14/10/21

Was watching this series. A young African American woman is going to lead her first surgery. She was nervous and expressing it to her boss – an Asian American women. What her boss said was profound.

She said there was no need to doubt herself. Being a non-male, non-white person, she had already overcome far greater odds to get to this position in life. Her PATH had been much much harder than a regular white male.

She had proven herself like few of her colleagues had. And hence there was no need for doubt. She would be fine.

I was struck by the point about the difficulty of the PATH. I was thinking about how we evaluate people during hiring and promotion processes. We rarely consider the difficulty of the PATH. On the contrary, we often use proxies which are indicative of an easier PATH. Good family, good schooling, top tier college etc. That’s the equivalent of the white male. We should rethink the proxies based on the PATH.

We need to find more female African Americans. Because their PATHs have been harder and they have proven themselves in tougher circumstances.